Diary of a Sanka Devi
by arnavsinghraizada
Summary: The story I'm going to tell you is that of a girl. A girl who met a boy (but he was not just any boy, no he was not, he was the one). A girl of many names, she went by Titaliya, Parmeshwari, Pagal and for the purposes of our story? Sanka Devi.
1. Prologue

The story I'm going to tell you is that of a girl. A girl who met a boy (but he was not just any boy, no he was not, he was **the** **one** ). A girl of many names, she went by Titaliya, Parmeshwari, Pagal and for the purposes of our story? Sanka Devi. And while she went by all of these names, she was most commonly known as one Khushi Kumari Gupta from Gomti Sadan in Lucknow (and this is the place to where her fanmail would one day be addressed).

For all intents and purposes, our heroine was an ordinary young girl. Her parents told her she was pretty, and she knew it must be so, for parents never lied, and she did well in school. She was polite and well-mannered, a pleasure to be around. Then why didn't **he** like her? He being Arnav Malik, an _older_ boy she went to school with. She had heard the whispers about him. That when Mr Desai would call on him in class, he would always know the answer, even if he hadn't been listening. … Even if it was a **math** question. She wasn't sure what it was about him that intrigued her more. His awe-inspiring ability to compute numbers in his head or that he seemed to be the one person she knew who didn't find her absolutely adorable. Not that, that mattered to her.

…. But **why** did he not? She just wanted to know that much.

' _There you go, Sanka Devi,'_ a voice that sounded suspiciously like Buaji's piped up in her head, ' _leave that poor boy alone.'_ Her lips twisted into a grimace as she imagined the scolding she would have gotten if her aunt could have read her mind in that moment. She would have indeed told her to leave Arnav Malik alone though, if what she had heard about him was true, poor was hardly the word to describe him. The Malik family were renowned through Lucknow for their textile business, living up in the grand Sheesh Mahal that she and Payal would take side routes to catch a glimpse of occasionally. To an eleven-year-old girl, the grand house was no less than a castle out of a fairy tale, and Arnav its prince. In the stories her mother would tell her before bed, the prince would always marry the beautiful, obedient girl who listened to her parents and ate all of her dinner. Khushi Kumari Gupta did all of that. Therefore, the prince would have to marry her, but first, he'd have to speak to her. And for that… she had a plan. Young Arnav Malik, the ice prince who lived up in Sheesh Mahal on the hill, had no idea what fiery storm was headed his way.

… But don't all the best stories start out that way?


	2. Operation Catch-A-Prince Day 1

**Operation Catch-A-Prince: Day 1**

Dear Diary,

Everything feels a lot more real now that I have a nicely underlined title. Jiji thinks my idea is 'ridiculous,' and 'fanciful.' She thinks I don't know she was just looking for an excuse to show off the fancy new words she learned in school. I saw her spelling test with those very words on them and told her as much too, only to have her huff at me in response and turn away. But I, Khushi Kumari Gupta, future princess/Prime Minister of India (I'm flexible with job options, really), will not allow my ideas to be doubted like this. It was because of that, that I compiled this _comprehensive_ (how's that for fancy words, Jiji?) list of pros and cons to Operation Catch-A-Prince.

 **Pros**

-Will be married to the cutest boy in school

-Cutest boy in school will get to be married to me

-He will get access to my fast-growing collection of Salman Khan merchandise

-Someone else will do the math at Babuji's store so I won't have to anymore

-Will get jalebis whenever he wants

-Will motivate me to finish learning how to make jalebis

-Will lead to **me** getting jalebis whenever **I** want

-Brij from across the street will stop smiling weirdly at me cause I am now a taken woman

 **Cons**

-He might end up being weird (like Brij from across the street) and how do I break his heart then?

… It's a risk I'm willing to take though.

I brought you (my diary) with me to school today, that way I can document every little thing that happens today. Here's what I've got so far.

 **8:30 AM** \- School begins, I sit in class.

 **8:35 AM** \- Rohan Verma, who sits at the desk beside mine, takes his gum out of his mouth when he thinks no one is looking and sticks it under the desk. Ew.

 **8:37 AM** \- He takes a sip from his water bottle

 **8:40 AM** \- He glances around and PUTS THE PIECE OF GUM BACK IN HIS MOUTH! HAI DEVI MAIYA I CAN'T.

At that point the strain of constant vigilance became a bit much and I decided to wait till lunch to continue documenting my experiences, seeing as though I wouldn't see Arnav till then anyways. And sure enough. There he is, standing under a tree on the far side of the courtyard. He looks like he's thinking about something. Probably something super smart… like the Pythagorean Theorem or something. Man, he can probably do that without a calculator. At this point Jiji, who has been reading over my shoulder like some sort of sneak apparently, pipes up to say "It's not like that's hard, Khushi. At his age he should be able to do that mentally."

I stared at her before calmly suggesting that she focus on her dal chawal before the pigeons pecked it all away and she was left hungry. Smart girl that she is, she listened, which left me free to admire my future prince in peace. He's taller than the other boys, they all crowd around him begging for his attention like that one time I left the house with a piece of _barfi_ in my hand and the pigeons chased me, screaming, all the way down the street and didn't leave until Babuji chased them off with a broom. On Sports Day, he ran faster than all of the boys in his class. We'd make such a perfect pair, both born athletes. When I voiced this thought of mine, Jiji laughed so hard she choked on her lunch and I, being the benevolent goddess I am, swatted her on the back, maybe a little bit harder than necessary, until she caught her breath.

"Khushi," she said mockingly. "You? An athlete? On Sports Day you fell the minute the race started because the sound of the buzzer scared you."

How utterly cruel of her to bring that cursed day up like this. So callously (Score! Another fancy word). I sniffed and told her that she obviously hadn't seen my feats of strength which included, but were not limited to:

-Lifting bags of sugar

-Lifting trays of jalebis

-Lifting… other things too

And to make things even worse, Jiji's embarrassing choking and her statement hadn't gone unnoticed. I had glanced back in Arnav's direction only to find him already looking over at us. He looked away immediately, not before I got a split second to admire the full force of his face, but the damage was done. He had probably even heard Jiji's shrieked mention of my darkest day. How would he ever love me now?

Nonsense. He had to love me. Why would he not? He was such a smart boy, surely smart enough to realize that we would be perfect together. And if he wasn't? Well, then that was a problem entirely its own, I'd have to spell it out for him. I had once heard Sheila Mausi from across the street whisper to her friend that men didn't think with their brains. What they thought with then I wasn't sure of yet, but considering that Arnav Malik was a lone man in a sea of young boys, he too must think with whatever Sheila Mausi was referencing to.

Buaji was of the opinion that to ensnare a man you had to attract him with scented oils, large amounts of eyeliner, and eye movements that bordered on looking like a seizure. To be fair, I don't think I had been meant to hear her, but it didn't change that she had given me, a young woman on the prowl, invaluable information. Before any of that, I had to get his attention.

"What are you going to do, Khushi?" Jiji said in that stupid judgey way of hers while she neatly packed up her tiffin. "Throw your pencil case at him?"

…. Well now that she mentioned it, it would definitely serve to get his attention? If he could ignore my pencil case hitting his beautiful face (and with my aim there was a large chance of that happening), he was much more of a man than I had originally thought.

So it was decided then. I, Khushi Kumari Gupta, would throw my bedazzled pencil case at Arnav Malik and he would look at me and fall in love and then he'd say, in a voice that sounded coincidentally a lot like Salman Khan's, "chalti hai kya 9 se 12?"

Will update you soon.

Signed,

Khushi Kumari Gupta


	3. Operation Catch-A-Prince Day 1 (still)

**Operation Catch-A-Prince: Day 1 (still)**

Dear Diary,

Arnav is not just a prince. He is a gentleman prince. A knight in shining armour, a … a - he's like Prem from Hum Saath-Saath Hain, if Prem was sarcastic and kind of mean. He's quiet just like Prem is, but he doesn't smile as much. That's okay, one day when we're married I'll tease him about what a snob he was and he'll laugh and say that I taught him what true love and happiness is. Then I will say that I already knew this cause I am good and virtuous. It's full-proof.

"You mean _fool-_ proof," Jiji sighed, having reverted back to her ways of sneakiness and reading over my shoulder.

"Arnav's not a fool, Jiji," I said sternly, ready to defend my would-be husband to the death.

"No, Khushi," she groaned, looking like she wanted to smack me, "the **word** is foolproof."

To be honest, I don't completely understand how a word could be defended against fools, but I didn't argue. That's another reason mine and Arnav's marriage will be so exemplary one day. I will never fight with him. Ever. For anything. He's so beautiful, why would I even want to? We'll agree on everything and even if we don't, I'll probably be so attractive one day that he'll agree with me anyways, just to keep me happy.

One day, after he finishes fighting Salman Khan for my hand in marriage, he'll tell me how beautiful I am and that he'd fight Salmanji a million times if it meant getting me - ugh, Jiji is back. And with more silly and cruel remarks.

"Pagli," she says, laughing callously as if she isn't about to break my heart, "by the time you're old enough to be married, Salman Khan will have kids of his own."

I don't know who Jiji thinks she is exactly, but her negativity is not welcome in my bubble of good wishes and happiness.

Speaking of good wishes and happiness! Why focus on negativity like Jiji's when I had Arnav, the personification of goodness and happiness, to talk about. I guess you could say that our love story officially began at 2:30 pm today when I walked out of class and saw him in the courtyard again. He was standing under a tree, and I knew from watching him before that he was waiting for the arrival of the big white car that would pick him up from school and take him back home. I stared at him for a while, trying to find the courage to follow through with my idea. What if it hit him and he got angry? Nonsense, Arnav didn't have an angry bone in his body, he is an _angel_. What if it hit him and he got hurt? Nonsense, yet again. Something as small as a pencil case couldn't hurt a man. And Arnav… well he was definitely a man. Besides, I told myself resolutely, even if it did hurt slightly now, it would be made up for in the happiness he'd feel realizing it was me, the love of his life, here to retrieve him at last. Once I had him, I'd keep him close so girls like Shreya Khanna couldn't get too close. That girl was already on my last nerve. Always staring at Arnav, whispering to her friends about him, she probably even wrote about him in her diary. What a creep!

"Khushi," Jiji's voice sounded again, undoubtedly to spout some more negative nonsense. "Don't you do the exact same thing?"

"Excuse me?!" I had gasped, appalled that Jiji would suggest that I would ever do such a thing to my beautiful Arnav.

"You stare at him, whisper about him and his mental math skills, and write about him in that diary of yours. Aren't you just as bad as she is?"

How. Dare. She.

"It is completely different." I sniffed haughtily. "I am going to marry him one day so that makes it cute."

She didn't seem to agree with me but then again who cared what she thought. One day when I was the Princess of Sheesh Mahal on the hill and Jiji was married to creepy Brij's older brother Rohit, then we'd see what she thought. Back to what was **really** important, Arnav.

I stared at him from a few feet away. He looked like he was thinking again, staring up at the leaves of the tree. He was probably thinking about photosynthesis or something equally impressive. I knew from prior… observations… that the fancy white car from Sheesh Mahal would be arriving soon, so if I wanted to act, I had to do it now. I raised my arm, pencil case in hand and poised to throw, when I began to second guess my plan. Maybe I could just by him and drop it instead? Was throwing it necessary? I had almost convinced myself to rethink my idea when Arnav turned away from the tree and made eye contact with me. The sunlight was filtering through the canopy of leaves, lighting up the different shades of golden brown in his eyes. Before I was really conscious of what was happening, my arm let go, and I could only watch in horror as my pencil case went sailing through the air. Arnav saw it too, and looked confused as he calmly took a step backwards, effectively removing himself from the path of the object. It hit the ground between us, and I felt like the entire courtyard had gone silent suddenly, despite the fact that I could **hear** Shreya Khanna trying to get Arnav's attention by talking too loudly about how much she loves math. He looked up at me then, and raised one eyebrow in a perfect, questioning arch.

"What the hell was that?"

His voice! In my head, I'd imagined all sorts of voices for him, thinking of what he would sound like when he told me was in love with me when I would finally speak to him. Nothing could measure up to what it **really** was. None of the boys in my year sounded like that. I kept my eyes trained on him and in my head I looked just like Madhuri Dixit, a worldly beauty speaking volumes from my eyes.

"Are you okay? Your eye is… doing something..?"

… Or maybe I didn't look as alluring (another fancy word!) as I thought I did. He asked me if I was okay! He _cared_! Of course he cared about me, he's older and smarter, he probably immediately recognized that I'm his soulmate. He is a man and I am a mature woman about to blossom -

"Do you need help finding your mom?" Devi Maiya, he's beautiful and so kind. But I'd have to talk to him about this. He couldn't make a habit out of being so nice to every girl he came across, offering to escort her to her mother and all. What if they just kept him!? Someone so perfect needed to be more careful.

"No!" I finally burst out, not wanting him to go find a teacher to deal with who he probably thought was some kind of nut. "No, thank you."

I tried to keep my voice softer that time, wispy and feminine, a woman never raised her voice after all -

"Pardon? I can't hear you." Arnav took a step closer to me, and my heart lurched in answer.

"NO. I'M OKAY, THANK YOU."

I want to die. How could I have yelled in his presence?!

He blinked in surprise before his features settled back into a mask of indifference and he nodded, turning away from me again to face the road and watch for his car. A few more minutes passed and I tried not to squeal every time he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. He would frown everytime he noticed I was still standing there. Probably because he can't control his heartbeat when I'm around.

Duh.

Any second now, he'd pick up my pencil case and hand it back to me, take my hand in his and pretend to kiss the back of it (not the real thing - not without marriage). I'd swoon and he'd catch me in his strong arms. We wouldn't get married though, that was for when we were much older, like 16 or something. More minutes passed. He still didn't seem to have taken the hint. Wow. This was really something we'd have to discuss. He, of course, would be repentant and plead for my forgiveness. I would forgive him because I was so kind and he'd notice that and say I was the most amazing girl he'd ever known (and I wouldn't even need to make him say it, like I had to force Buaji to, he'd say it cause he wanted to).

Eventually, he sighed harshly and looked at me again. I knew he would understand soon enough.

"Are you gonna get that, kid?"

Kid. I was expecting more along the lines of _jaaneman, meri jaan,_ or _beautiful_ but I could take 'kid,' as a starting point, I suppose.

More silence. Something in his jaw flexed in irritation and I felt a swoop where my stomach should be. He's so pretty.

"Fine." He snarled, stalking the few steps over to where my pencil case had fallen and stooping to retrieve it. Arnav looked at me again and I wanted to swoon for real when he started to walk towards me now, my glittery pencil case clutched in his manly hands.

"Here."

I took it from his hands, taking care not to brush my fingers against his. **That** kind of stuff was only allowed once we were married.

"Thank you." I replied, and for once I didn't have to act to make my voice as soft as it came out. To his credit, he didn't mention my lack of earlier responses and simply nodded in answer. A car horn sounded from behind us and he turned around to face the big white car from Sheesh Mahal

Panic gripped me, I couldn't let this interaction end, not when I finally had his attention! He started to walk away from me, and I shouted the first thing that came to mind.

"Khushi!"

His steps faltered and he glanced back at me over his shoulder, pausing for a moment in confusion.

"My name -" I said sheepishly, staring at the floor now, scuffing my shoe against the dirt. "My name is Khushi."

I thought he must've left when he finally answered.

"Nice name. Suits you."

My eyes flashed up to his to find him still looking at me, an awkward half-smile on his face. My heart was suddenly racing like Basanti on her horse-cart and I beamed back at him.

"I'm Arnav."

I barely managed to resist the urge to say that I already knew and instead settled for,

"Nice name. Suits you."

He smiled, a **real** full smile and gave me a small wave before he climbed into his big white car and took off towards his palatial home. He'd be back though, I knew he would. After all, he'd left his princess behind.

Signed,

Khushi Kumari Gupta


End file.
